In the upper Midwest, nearly 1000 Canvasbacks and Redheads have been found dead along Lake St. Clair (often referred to as “the sixth Great Lake”). This is a conservative number, considering how many may have died out in the lake…
Environmental issues
I’ve long intended on writing something about mountaintop removal mining, ever since reading Erik Reece’s article in Harper’s in 2005 (Ted Williams also wrote a great article in Audubon). This coal-extraction method is unbelievably environmentally devastating in many ways. The…
Real or fake? Every year, folks try to decide whether to get a live Christmas tree, or put up an artificial tree. This topic has been fairly well covered on several green blogs, so I will offer an overview and…
The overpopulation of certain species, whether native or not, can cause problems. When these species are appealing to the public, their control becomes an even bigger challenge. Previously, I discussed these issues in regards to White-tailed Deer and Mute Swans….
Bootstrap Public Service Announcement #3: Tubes used to protect young trees can trap and kill birds. Since bluebirds aren’t especially common right around home, I was not aware that they can become easily trapped in the tubes people use to…
Do you know of any signs mounted on those metal posts that have holes all down the middle? If the sign isn’t fastened in the top holes, they remain exposed and have been found to trap raptors, which get their…
Via Invasive Species Weblog, a story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the Wisconsin DNR will allow citizens in three southern counties in that state to “adopt” wild Mute Swans and spare them from approved lethal control measures, provided they…
Another very interesting paper [1] has come out on the impacts of non-native earthworms on forests, which I wrote about a year ago. As you recall, much of northern North America has no native earthworms, and microbes are primarily responsible…
What does it mean to be “carbon neutral”? There is a lot of talk lately about going “carbon neutral” by purchasing carbon offsets. You calculate (via various formulas available online) how many tons of carbon you are responsible for, based…
There was an excellent article in the New York Times Magazine on the ramifications of Wal-Mart so aggressively entering the organic food market. They plan on offering a full line of organic foods at only 10% above…